Medieval

In 1271, 17-year-old Marco Polo started on a journey to China with his father and older brother. After a long and grueling journey that led through Jerusalem and Mesopotamia and over the "Silk Road", they reached the court of Kublai Khan in 1275.

In The Voyages of Marco Polo, players recreate this journey, with each player having a different character and special power in the game. The game is played over five rounds. Each round, the players roll their five personal dice and can perform one action each turn with them. The five main actions are shown on the bottom part of the board:

Get resources with 1-3 dice, depending on the value of the resource (camels, pepper, silk, gold). The first player for each resource gets them for free; the later ones have to pay according to the value shown on the dice.
Take one resource of your choice and two camels. Each player sets the minimum value for the future dice.
Earn money, with any one die netting you five money.
Purchase orders: The value of one die unlocks the orders up to that number (shown on the spaces) and allows to buy one or two of those orders. Orders are refreshed and placed at the beginning of each round. To fulfill an order, players have to spend resources for victory points, other resources, camels, and more.

Travel: Two dice are placed to unlock the distance that can be traveled on the upper part of the board, that is, the map. Here, the traveler piece of each player starts at Venice and can decide between several routes eastward, all the way to Beijing. When a traveler stops at a city, they place a marker there, giving them access to a different additional action for the rest of the game.

After five rounds, the game ends with players receiving victory points for arriving in Beijing, fulfilling the most orders, and having reached the cities on secret city cards that each player gets at the start of the game; these points are added to the VPs gained during the game.

Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo should not be confused with Marco Polo Expedition, which had the same German title.

Attila the Hun was an infamous barbarian warlord whose army of nomadic horsemen terrorized the people of Europe and Western Asia for nearly twenty years.

Attila, on the other hand, is a light and fast-paced game in which one player controls Attila and two of his warriors while the other player controls three Roman soldiers, one of them being Roman general Flavius Aetius.

To set up, players create a playing area from the four game board tiles (such as a 4x5 rectangle), then place their figures on empty spaces. On a turn, you move one of your tokens in a knight's move (as in chess); you can traverse occupied squares and empty space as long as you land on a free space. Then you place a scorched earth tile on any empty space. Players alternate turns, and whoever first can't move a token loses the game!

In this board game, you play as a tribal chief, leading your Viking fleet while engaging in well-planned attacks.

But your opponents are also trying to conquer as much land as possible. Naturally, wild battles can’t be avoided. Only the bravest warriors may move in to Valhalla. Therefore, you’ll need to use tactical savvy when using your men to plunder and steal. Only through successful besieging of villages and reaching other countries will you gain the most victory points and win the game.

In 11th century Ireland players try to gather amulets with the help of five druids. Each amulet is divided in 9 parts and the player with the most complete amulets wins the game.

Other Celtic games.

Patrician takes place in the Middle Ages when men were men and wealthy men were inspired to build magnificent towers in order to show off how prosperous they were. As the old saying goes, the taller the tower, the more influential the family.

Players are master builders trying to profit from these vanity-driven families. You build these towers floor by floor, ready to take credit for making them look good. From Mayfair’s description of the game: “You must shrewdly accept the building orders of the patrician families to position yourself in the right place at the right time. Play your cards right, and your name will be famous among the rich and powerful!”

Patrician comes with 149 wooden tower pieces, 55 building cards, 20 prestige tokens, and a double-sided playing board.

The board represents a number of cities, each of which will have 2 towers when the games ends. Players have a hand of 3 cards, each indicating one city. Playing a card allows that player to add a tower piece to the city indicated by the card. Each city will have a specific number of tower pieces. When the specified number of pieces are played to the city, the city is complete. The player with the most pieces in each of the two towers will score points when the city is completed. The player replaces the played card by taking the card from the city where he played a tower piece. As long as the city in uncompleted, a new card is added to the city to replace the one taken by the player.

In addition to indicating a city, cards have one of 4 secondary functions. They can have one or two Portraits from an influential family. They can add a second tower piece to the same city. they can allow the player to move the top piece from one tower in any other city where the player has at least one tower piece, to the top of the other tower in that same city. Finally, a card may allow the player to take a replacement card from any of the cities, not just the one where the player has added a tower piece. All cards played are kept by the player. At the end of the game, additional points are awarded for every complete set of 3 portraits from the influential families.

The game ends when all cities are completed, which will also be when all cards have been played.

The goal of the game is to be the most successful builder, indicated by having the most points.